Graduate School of Education Alumni and Students in the News

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Alumni and Students in the News

We are proud of our many inspiring alumni and students are making news in quiet ways, working to make a difference in schools and organizations around the world. We are also proud of our alumni who capture the attention of a wider audience. Below is a sampling.

Nyree Simmons, 2011 graduate of the M.Ed. in Technology in Education Program, was named the 2015 Teacher of the Year by the Jasper County, South Carolina, school district. Simmons, a fifth grade teacher, says "My favorite part about coming to work every day is seeing the light bulbs. Seeing my students struggling with the concept and then go, 'Oh! I got it." She became a teacher after being in the Navy for four years and completing degrees at the University of South Carolina, Wheelock College, and Lesley. Read more »

Don Sprangers (Ecological Teaching and Learning, '04) was awarded the 2015 Maine Environmental Education Association's Maine Environmental Educator of the Year for his outstanding contributions to ecological learning and experiential, place-based learning. Read more »

Creative Arts in Learning alumnus Billy Claire has been named 2015 Middle Level Art Educator of the Year by the Massachusetts Art Education Association. A musician as well as an artist and middle school art teacher, he says that "I learned more about music by going to art school than I would have if I'd gone to music school." Read more »

Julie White Patel, 2013 graduate of the Early Childhood and Creative Arts in Learning Program and current Quincy, MA, first grade teacher, was recently on the Ellen DeGeneres show after being chosen for her answers to a survey about technology needs at schools. She and her school, Parker Elementary, were selected to be featured on the show. The Ellen show filmed at the school, and Julie went on the program and accepted a $25,000 check from Wells Fargo to use at her school. Each child at the school also received a backpack full of supplies. Read more »

Cherrie Greco graduated from Lesley's Curriculum and Instruction M.Ed., and is now Director of Community Sentencing in Oklahoma County, OK. She has written several thoughtful pieces related to her field, including "How PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) will affect corrections in 2015." Read her article »Alexander Goldowsky [right], who received his M.Ed. in Computers in Education from Lesley, was recently appointed Senior Vice President, Exhibits and Programs, at the Boston Children's Museum. He also received a BA from Lesley in the Audubon Expedition Institute. Read more »

Faith Hardison, M.Ed. in Educational Technology (2008), has received the Innovative Program Award for the South Carolina Association for Educational Technology. The award singled out the newsletter she developed for her sixth graders that allowed them to write the way they would in a newsroom. Read more »

Alumna Traci Davis, M.Ed. in Educational Technology (2000), has been named interim superintendent of the 63,000 student Washoe County, Nevada, school district. Read more »

Meg Steele is the new head of school at Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, Illinois. She is a 1996 graduate of the M.Ed. in Elementary Education Collaborative Program at Shady Hill School. Read more »

Jibril Solomon, who received his PhD in Educational Studies from Lesley, has been named by Tech Crunch Network as one of "10 Men Making Waves for Women in Tech," for dedicating his career to "combatting inequities in urban education systems and helping at-risk minorities and young women arrive at college with the math, literacy, and cultural competencies to compete." Read more »

Ecological Teaching and Learning MS student Renee Strnad [left] has been awarded the Melva Fager Okun Lifetime Achievement Award from the Environmental Educators of North Carolina. Read more »

Jennifer Dorman, 2009 graduate of the Curriculum and Instruction with a Specialization in Special Education master's program, has been named Maine Teacher of the Year for 2015 by the Maine Department of Education. Read more »

Alumna Sandy Brennan, 2013 graduate of the Integrated Teaching Through the Arts program and a Wells, Maine, elementary art school teacher, was named the 2014 Maine Art Educator of the Year by the Maine Art Education Association. Read more »

Alumna Teresa Wittmann (2002) was named 2014 Outstanding Teacher Librarian by the Washington Library Media Association for her "leadership in professional activities, service and collaboration with the librarian and school community." Read more »

Chris Willems has been awarded the 2014 Robert E. Yager Foundation Excellence in Teaching Award for Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The award "recognizes excellence and innovation in the field of science education." Chris, a science teacher in New Haven, CT, is a graduate of the first M.Ed. in Science in Education cohort, which started in 2002. Read more » [photo of Laura Yager, Chris Willems, and NSTA president Juliana Texley by Kenn Heydrick/Courtesy of NSTA]

John Dickson, 2007 graduate of the Individually Designed Moderate/Severe Special Needs program, is one of three teachers nationwide to receive the 2014 American Civic Education Teacher Award, sponsored by the Center on Congress at Indiana University, the Center for Civic Education, and the National Education Association. The award recognizes "exemplary work preparing young people to become informed and engaged citizens." Read more »

Roosevelt and Alliance Charter Elementary Schools of Neenah, Wis., have named M.Ed. in Technology in Education alumna Melissa Chrisman their new principal. Read more »

Mayte Heredia, M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction, has been appointed Ready to Learn Project facilitator for Vegas PBS. The project provides literacy, health, and math-based workshops to schools and families in the Clark County area.

PhD in Educational Studies graduate Anne Benoit has received the American Educational Research Association/SIG-FTED Robert J. Menges New Researcher Award for her dissertation study, "Learning from the Inside Out: A Narrative Study of College Teacher Development," which she wrote for her specialization in Adult Learning and Development. Anne is currently Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of Undergraduate Peer Tutoring and TA Programs at Curry College in Milton, Mass.

Integrated Teaching Through the Arts Master's degree candidate Maria Eby was recently named Magnet Schools of America's Region IV Teacher of the Year. She is a member of the Raleigh, N.C., Integrated Teaching through the Arts (ITA) cohort.

Jamie Grubel, who graduated in 2010 with an M.Ed. in Elementary Education, won a bronze for the United States in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, as part of the U.S. Women's Bobsled Team. Read more »

Kimberley Gilles, a Lesley alumna and current educator in California, was recently awarded the Horace Mann Award for Teaching Excellence. To receive the award, she traveled to Washington, D.C., in February, 2014, for the National Education Association awards gala. There, she was awarded the top NEA prize, which included $25,000 and a trip to China. Gilles is a graduate of the M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction: Integrated Teaching Through the Arts program. Read more »

A 2003 graduate of the M.Ed. in Elementary Education program, Barbara Mattaliano was recently featured for her entrepreneurship. Seventeen years ago, she was a nanny for a private equity investor who owned a wild rice farm in California. She convinced him (over time) of its commercial potential, and she is now part owner and enthusiastic promoter of the successful rice company, Goose Valley Natural Foods. Read more »

Rosalind O'Sullivan and her twin sister Florence Aldrich-Bennett have been teaching for 50 years — one in Sudbury and one in Cambridge. They both received their Master's degrees from Lesley University. Read more »

Sara Hennessy, graduate of Lesley's Integrated Teaching Through the Arts program, was named Elementary Teacher of the Year by the New Mexico Music Educator's Association (2013). Holly Doe, a
Pelham, N.H., teacher, is the recipient of a Presidential Award for
Excellence. Holly graduated from Lesley with a Master of Education in
Technology in Education. Read more »

The thesis work of Rebecca S. Kirk, alumna of the M.Ed. in Community Arts program, is featured in a recently-published book: Arts-Based Research Primer, James Haywood Rolling, Jr., author.

Darcy Fernandes, who is working on her PhD in Educational Leadership at Lesley, was recently named assistant superintendent for teaching and learning by the Randolph, Mass., school committee. "Ms. Fernandes has a proven track record of striving for excellence," said Interim Superintendent Steve Moore.

Jennifer Williams, a recent M.Ed. in Science in Education student, has created an Urban Birds Project, working with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, that has been implemented at her new employer, the Brownsville, Texas, Children's Museum. Read about the project »

M.Ed. in Community Arts graduate Miranda Aisling Hynes recently published a book called, Don't Make Art, Just Make Something: The Process, Struggle, and Vital Importance of Getting Started.

Chad Osborne, alumnus and former student of Professor George Blakeslee in the M.Ed. in Educational Technology program, wrote a grant for a technology course last year, and helped his school district win a $110,000 grant for 3-D
scanning and modeling technology.

Kimberley Gilles, graduate of Lesley's Integrated Teaching Through the Arts program, was a 2012 recipient of the California Teachers Association 2012 Members Human Rights Award. She was on campus in 2012 presenting her Master's thesis, in which she designed and implemented a curriculum for The Laramie Project, a play about reactions to the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard. Read more » Kimberley's students are also making news: four of her students were in the top ten of the California Center of the Book's (CCB) Letters About Literature contest. One then went on to win second in the nation from the Library of Congress's Letters About Literature contest. Kimberley will be recognized by the CCB in June.

Jay A. McIntire,who graduated from Lesley University with a degree in environmental education, has been selected as the new superintendent of schools of Brewer, Maine. Read more »

Diane King-Burgess has been awarded Teacher of the Year at Millwood Elementary School in Sumter, South Carolina. King-Burgess earned a Master of Education in Technology in Education from Lesley.

Jim Reed, who earned his M.Ed. in Educational Technology from Lesley, teaches multimedia at a middle school in Baxter, Minnesota. He and a colleague, Cory Olson, and their students were named as one of five grand prize winners in the Solve for Tomorrow contest. Their project, which involved a high altitude balloon, won $110,000 in technology for their school. Jim, Cory, and the students travel to Washington, D.C., to receive the award in April. Read more » and See the project's website

Jana Karp, a School of Education alumna and current Lesley Board of Trustees member, receives a Sisters of Charity Community Leadership Award for her work at the Boston Youth Sanctuary, of which she is founder and executive director.

Maria Madrigal, graduate of the M.Ed. in Ecological Teaching and Learning program, has been selected for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Teacher at Sea program. A program manager of the Redondo Beach SEA Lab, she spent two
weeks in the Samoan Islands in April. Read her blog »

Terris King II and Brandon Gillespie, graduates of the Lesley University/Shady Hill School Collaborative Internship Program, were recently featured in a CNN piece about the urgent need for more African American male teachers. They received their Master's degrees from Lesley and their undergraduate degrees from Morehouse College in Atlanta. View the video clip »

Susan Snyder, graduate of the Ecological Teaching and Learning Program, was the 2011 Vern A. Fridley Environmental Educator of the Year in the state of Utah. Read
more »

Sarah Reeves Young, graduate of the Master of Education in Middle School Science program, was recently named an Albert Einstein Fellow by the National Science Foundation. An educator for NASA, an adjunct professor, and a Space Foundation Teacher Liaison, among other things, Sarah is is also the author of a book of science experiments, entitled "Gourmet Lab: The Scientific Principles Behind Your Favorite Foods." and the current Science Supervisor for the state of Utah. Read more »